


All That I Have to Lose

by wirewrappedlily



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Ghosts, M/M, Necromancy, Tags to be updated as we go, don't ask just read it, it's Derek fucking Hale so of course there's angst, major character starts off dead, whether they stay dead remains to be seen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: At any other moment, Derek would reach out and take Stiles’s hand—touch him in some way, as if his touch could bring any solace or comfort to anyone anymore. After all he’d done, after all they’d all gone through, Derek felt the blood on his hands so acutely that there was no chance, anymore, for peace.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Lydia Martin, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 15
Kudos: 60





	1. Needed More Than Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [giidas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/giidas/gifts).



> Happy birthday to the most glorious [Katka](https://giidas.tumblr.com/). This was supposed to be a oneshot, but then you told me I had five more days, and Things Happened. 
> 
> If you want to listen to where my headspace is for this monster, click [here](https://youtu.be/obi4KCh6eHQ)!
> 
> Enjoy, my freaky darlings...

Rain pounds outside, as it has done for the last two days. Derek Hale’s gaze tracks over Stiles Stilinski where he sits propped on the pillows next to him. 

Stiles isn’t asleep, but he isn’t talking, either, and that’s almost worse than waking up to find the young man still sitting there, silently watching the rain pour down. 

At any other moment, Derek would reach out and take Stiles’s hand—touch him in some way, as if his touch could bring any solace or comfort to anyone anymore. After all he’d done, after all they’d all gone through, Derek felt the blood on his hands so acutely that there was no chance, anymore, for peace. 

Stiles blinks, shifting and looking down to meet Derek’s gaze. “I missed you.” Stiles admits, voice tight. 

Derek wants to apologize, but the words won’t actually come. Instead, Stiles shifts even more, laying down in mirror to Derek, his brown eyes heavy with all the things that were left between them. The urge to touch him is even worse like this, and Derek has to clench his hands into fists to resist it. 

“I’m sorry.” Stiles breathes, “For all of it, I’m sorry.” 

Derek gives him a heavy look, and Stiles sighs, knowing all the things Derek’s eyes are saying to that. All the denials that Stiles had anything to do with what happened, when it is all categorically Derek’s fault. 

Stiles licks his lips, shaking his head slightly, “If there was one thing I could get for all that we’ve gone through, it would be for you to be at peace, Derek. You deserve that much.” 

A tear falls from the corner of Stiles’s eye, and Derek’s hand is reaching for it without thought. His hand passes through Stiles’s cheek, and in the snap of pain and heartache that results from that, Derek almost misses the fact that while Derek’s fingers passed through Stiles’s cheek, they didn’t pass also through the tear he was trying to wipe away. 

For the first time since he died, Derek Hale can feel something.


	2. Strong Enough

When Lydia comes to visit, Derek’s first instinct is to give she and Stiles space. 

Stiles is in the back yard of the little house Derek had bought, chopping wood for a fireplace Derek had bought the place for, but never quite worked up the nerve to use. It’s cold out, but Stiles has been working for long enough that he’s stripped his outer layers, tshirt now clinging slightly with a mixture of sweat and the damp of the day. Stiles is as attractive as Derek’s ever seen him, and he knows that Lydia will probably appreciate it fully. 

But Stiles catches sight of him, smiling in self-deprecation as he uses the bottom of his tshirt to wipe the sweat from his brow, flashing pale skin and wrinkling his nose at the fact that his shirt is damp enough for that to have made no difference. 

“I’d rather not tell Lydia that you’re still here.” Stiles confesses as he moseys over to a bottle of water he’d brought out. Derek’s feelings on being kept a secret must flash over his features, because Stiles shakes his head, “She’d want me to move you on. I want you to take whatever time you need…I want you to find your peace, not be forced into it.”

Derek figures he probably looks like he has been slapped about the face with a caught fish, but Stiles doesn’t comment. 

“If you’re alright with it, I’d like to stay here…everything I’ve read says ghosts get stronger the more energy they have to feed off of. Lydia’s going to try to talk me out of staying here, but I want clearance with you before I tell her to stuff it.” 

Derek manages to twitch a nod, and Stiles offers a tiny smile. 

“It’s a really nice place you have here, Derek. I was surprised…when your lawyer called and told me you’d left me a house." Stiles’s smile plays further onto his lips, “But then, it’s a smart move, to have the place you’re probably going to haunt fall into familiar hands.” 

That wasn’t why Derek had bequeathed the little house to Stiles, and Derek wishes futilely that he’d been blatant enough about his real reasons in life, now that he couldn’t give them their proper weight in death. 

“Stick around when Lydia gets here? I won’t be able to talk to you freely, but I want to see if having more than one person in the house changes how you do with the energy you get.” Stiles casts his gaze up and down Derek as he’s managed to appear. 

Derek is aware of his death, so he’s free of the marks of it. He’s wearing the clothes Stiles had had him buried in. Stiles, because he was who he was, had opted for a natural burial, and so Derek is in a cotton shirt and cotton sweats, comfortable in a way he rarely allowed himself to be in life. Stiles had told Scott when he protested this that it was a part of were-culture—culture, Stiles had scathingly reminded Scott, that he should know about—to go back to the earth as naturally as possible. Derek still finds himself smiling slightly at the memory of Scott’s face when Stiles had told him off, thankful that he'd managed to bear witness to it. 

Lydia pulls into the driveway, and Stiles very visibly acts as though he doesn’t notice, looking out into the forest instead of going around the house to greet her. 

Derek meets Stiles’s gaze, his confusion written plainly on his face, but Stiles just gives him a look. It’s a look unlike any other Derek has had directed his way; a look of such tenderness that Derek feels himself slip, just a little between the world Stiles has anchored him to, and the blurry grey non-world of the dead. If Derek were alive, he’d have lost his breath, but as it is, there’s a painful twist in Derek’s chest, where a beating heart would have skipped. “I’m not leaving you alone unless you make me, Der. No matter what anyone says. I’m…I’m too late, I know. And I’m sorry.” 

Derek swallows, and Lydia coming around the side of the house, calling for Stiles, is the only thing that can tear Derek away from finally speaking. 

There have always been many things that Derek Hale had pressing at his throat to be said. Many things that now he wishes dearly he had just given voice to. But Stiles moving on from him; Stiles getting past his death, unencumbered by Derek’s useless feelings, is the priority. Not moving on; not finding whatever peace Stiles thinks he deserves. 

Derek missed his chance to do what he could have for Stiles Stilinski; missed his chance to make his mate happy. He'd thought that, with Stiles a human, the bond would fade for Stiles when he left. But Derek had known, the second Stiles clapped eyes on him--standing over his own corpse, too deep in shock to give proper warning to the others of what had killed him and was waiting to kill them--that what he'd hoped and what had happened had been two very different things. 

"How much small talk do we need to slog through before we get to the heart of the matter?" Lydia asks on a sigh as Stiles sets a coffee and a small plate of pastry before her. 

Stiles's eyes give an aborted flick towards where Derek stands, but his gaze drops before it quite reaches him. "None. I'm not leaving, Lyds." 

"Duh." Lydia replies, rolling her eyes, "More my concern is that you're not fully moving in yet. Derek is haunting this place, right?" 

Derek chokes slightly, trying not to laugh, and Stiles's mouth twitches. "Lyds--" 

Lydia holds up a finger, both brows raising pointedly as she pursed her full lips tightly, "Kid, you and I both know that if you try to tell me right now that you're being so awkward in this house that the man you were more in love with than you were in love with me left to you for some reason besides his ghostly ass still wandering about, I'm gonna stuff this lovely-looking baklava somewhere unpleasant about your person." 

Stiles coughs into a laugh, and sighs as he slumps into a seat, "I know you're going to want me to--" 

Lydia scoffs before he can even finish the sentence, "I want you to move him on, sure. I want _you_ to move on, and the lingering is not going to help either of you with that. But I also know that the two of you are just a little bit masochistic, and neither of you is quite ready to let the other go." 

Stiles's brows raise at this, "I hope to hell I'm not the thing keeping him here." 

Lydia shoots him a pitying look, and Derek grits his teeth, furious at himself for all the opportunities he was too wrapped up in his anger to take hold of. 

"Scott's not happy, but I've told him in no uncertain terms that if he comes bugging you before you're good and ready to come back--if you're ever good and ready to come back--that I'll be the one to take it out of his hide."

Stiles snorts, shaking his head at his best friend, and, no doubt, the image of Lydia's threat landing just as she'd meant it to. "I know it's not exactly healthy...but I don't want anyone coming around right now." 

The flash of cunning in Lydia's eyes is not lost on Derek, and he gains a whole new respect, both for her and for Stiles's choice to love her. "I know. And no one but I will come around. You have to at least put up with visits from me, Stilinski. I won't be losing my best friend, no matter his wishes." 

His features suffusing in gratitude, Stiles reaches over the table and their hands meet; not a lover's touch, but one shared between two people who have been through Hell together, and will continue to go through Hell for each other, if necessary. "He is here. I was worried...when he was with his body, at first." 

There's a glint in Lydia's eyes, a tinge of pity hinted at the furrow of her brow as she regards Stiles. "You would have gone wherever he was." 

Now, Stiles's eyes flash up to where Derek lurks, and Lydia nods, casting a look over to the vague direction of where Derek stands. 

Stiles is the only person Derek's come across that can see and speak to ghosts. Finding out that he could had come as a shock to all of them, but none quite so much as Stiles, whose introduction to his newfound abilities included seeing Gerard Argent trying to haunt Sheriff Stilinski, planting threads of distrust and aggression into the man's mind towards his son and his son's friends. 

Derek could remember walking into the Stilinski house and finding Stiles having a panic attack, worried all over again that he was losing his mind. 

The memory is like an undertow, and Derek is just barely learning how to swim in this new world of his. 

Coming back to the present, pulling himself out of the grey world of relived memory, is like waking up, he knows, and when he wakes up this time, it's back in bed beside Stiles, who is asleep this time. 

"Der..." Stiles groans, and Derek has encountered Stiles asleep more than enough to get a read for what his sleep-talking sounds like. 

With Stiles asleep beside him, Derek reaches out for his cheek again, hovering just shy of where he would have made contact. "I'm right here." Derek manages, voice choked as if he hadn't used it in years. As if the words tearing at his lungs and throat and tongue are really razor-sharp to him now. 

Stiles shifts towards the sound, a wrinkle in his brow loosening as if hearing Derek's voice was all he needed to relax. 

The sweep of Stiles's lashes over his cheeks feels like a beckoning meditation to Derek; the soft part of his lips, nearly red with the flush of sleep, is a study of how badly Derek has fucked his life up, in missing out on this. Derek didn't deserve a happy ending, he knew. And Stiles deserved and still deserves much more than Derek had to offer. But to lay beside him, in the cool dark of the night, unable to properly sense him, haunted by the memory of how he'd smelled and what his warmth had felt like when Stiles dared to get close enough to touch? Derek wonders if this is what it's like for other ghosts. To be haunted by their life, rather than being the one haunting. 

Stiles licks his lips, dragging the pillow under his head--Derek's pillow--down to his chest and hugging it tight. 

There's distress in the line of Stiles's shoulders now, and Derek knows that Stiles can't sleep properly--particularly not without his own damn pillow. What he's expecting is a nightmare; another thing to hate himself for, because Derek is the one that brought those night terrors back to Beacon Hills, it seems. 

What Derek finds instead is that Stiles is crying in his sleep. "Derek," Stiles sobs in his sleep, and the sound of his own voice is what wakes him. 

When Stiles's eyes alight on Derek, a mixture of relief and pain so acute that Derek remembers what that mix of emotions tasted like on the air floods over Stiles's face. 

"You're back." Stiles breathes, dashing away his own tears. 

Derek wants to apologize for disappearing, but Stiles licks his lips, rallies himself, and offers a small smile, laying almost shyly back down from where he'd launched himself upright. 

"Lydia is going to do some digging for me. She is probably more patient with the whole what-can-ghosts-do thing than I am at this point." 

Part of the issue for Stiles when he'd acquired this power was the fact that Derek didn't know anyone else who could do what he did; no one they knew did. And the research that Stiles regularly did was not exactly helpful, as it was a rare gift to actually have. Seeing the ghost of someone connected to you was common; seeing a ghost who'd been feeding off of enough energy to manifest itself was common, but seeing any ghost, talking to them, was something that rare and sought after. 

Derek wants to speak to him, but all over again, with Stiles's clever eyes on him, Derek is acutely aware that if he breaks the dam of his silence, then all the waters of emotion he'd held at bay for years would burst forth. He'd wasted his life--his chance--and there was no good reason for Stiles to carry the burden of any of the words he could offer in penance. 

"You look like you've been through the wringer, sourwolf." 

Derek manages the tiniest of smiles at the old nickname, and Stiles sighs softly, placing his hand on the bed between them, close enough that if he were real, Derek's pinky finger and his own would be touching. In a way, it's more intimate for Derek to be lying here beside Stiles than any of the sex Derek has ever had. They can't touch; Derek painfully aware and viciously resentful of that. But the space they'd shared before, it had all been leading up to this. Stiles is studying his face as if looking at a piece of art so subtle it's breathtaking, and while most of Derek's mind is preoccupied with the abject _ache_ of wanting to touch Stiles, there's a part of him that's remembering how it had _felt_ , when he could feel Stiles by his side. 

"Lydia is going to drop off a few of my things tomorrow. I hope you don't mind, but I borrowed something to sleep in for tonight." And, oh, that hurts worse, somehow. Derek can't imagine quite what it would smell like, to have Stiles wrapped up in his scent. "Thank you...for letting me stay here. And if there's any point you want me to go, if you need space or something..." Stiles hasn't asked Derek to speak, and doesn't now. Derek catches Stiles's eye with his own, and very solemnly shakes his head, hoping that in the strange way Stiles and he have always seemed to somehow both understand and trust each other, that Stiles will understand him now. 

Stiles twitches, and if Derek wasn't experiencing nearly the same thing, he wouldn't understand; Stiles wants to touch him, just as badly as Derek wants to touch Stiles. Derek can feel that his expression is as soft and loving as it should have been in life as he lifts his hand and traces his fingertips just shy of actually being close enough to graze Stiles's skin. The long fan of lashes flutters closed as Derek's fingertip follows the line of Stiles's nose, his hand moving as if he could cup Stiles's cheek then. 

A tear slides free from Stiles, his next breath ragged, and when he opens his eyes again, there's a hurt in them that Derek knows he deserves. "I know you heard Lydia say that I was in love with you, Derek. But I couldn't and still can't take your pity, so please don't--" Stiles swallows, presses his eyes closed again for a beat, "Just don't." 

_I love you,_ Derek wants to say--is the main thing Derek has held back from saying, all these years. And if Derek gives voice to those words now, he'll never be able to forgive himself. _It's not pity._ Bubbles to his lips, but it isn't enough. Stiles can't know that Derek loves him, really and truly as he's ever heard of loving someone. Because Stiles has to move on. At some point, Stiles has to let him go and find happiness, or Derek will have put them both through Hell for nothing.


	3. Here's a Map, Here's a Shovel

Derek isn’t attached to the house, he doesn’t think. He’s attached to Stiles. 

Derek’s beginning to get the hang of where he reappears when he disappears into the grey, and when he manages not to come back directly beside Stiles, but standing in his old bedroom while Stiles is having dinner with the Sheriff, it feels like a small victory. 

It’s only for a minute that Derek stands there without the looming press of the life he’d led and the paths he could have—should have—chosen to change it. He remembers slamming Stiles into that wall; just enough to knock the breath from his lungs, but not enough to hurt him. Stiles had smelled like Adderall and grass-stains back then; it’d all-but masked what his actual scent was. Derek could remember when he’d first actually gotten Stiles’s scent. 

It is with dawning horror, however, that Derek realizes that while he can still describe it in his mind, he can't bring back the memory strongly enough to get to the heart of the description. Was the sweetness in his scent more like vanilla, or cinnamon? Was the edge of Stiles's fear the copper of blood, or fresh-turned earth just waiting for a body? 

Derek remembers Stiles's warmth desperately, but now that he's come to realize he's losing the grip on his senses, he's no longer sure if the warmth his mind dreams up for him is actually Stiles's, or if it's the warmth of someone else, put into his place. 

Derek misses the sound of it, too caught up in his dawning horror. When Stiles opens the door, he turns, only to find Stiles looking as dire as he feels. "What is it, Der? What's wrong?" 

Derek tries, now, to make himself talk--and feels the words catch and lodge painfully in his throat...watches Stiles reach up to his own, as if feeling Derek's pain. 

It's the last thing Derek would want; to share his pain with anyone else. But as Stiles looks at him, wide-eyed, Derek knows that Stiles can feel his pain now. Whatever sensitivity Stiles has, it's gotten stronger with him. 

If he ran, could it be undone? If he disappeared, would Stiles be able to stop feeling him? 

"Don't you fucking dare, Hale." Stiles hisses, eyes turning liquid and angry, "Is it really so terrible, for me to know when you're hurting?"

 _Yes,_ is the simple answer, because Derek's hard-pressed to think of a time--any time--when he isn't hurting. 

"I'm going home. And when I get there, you'd better be there waiting for me." Stiles snarls at him, and another tear falls, splashing a tidal wave of self-loathing over Derek, because making Stiles cry is the last thing he's ever wanted. 

Stiles clears his throat with some difficulty, musters himself, and leaves the room. 

Derek, in an act of...he doesn't think it's really rebellion, so much as it is testing a theory, stays when Stiles drives away. It's only when it's been long enough for Stiles to be nearly home that Derek realizes what he feels in that moment is a pull stronger than he's ever remembered the full moon being. Stiles is the only person who can see him; the only person who could hear him, if Derek ever managed to work up the nerve to finally fucking speak to him. 

But that excuse for his need also falls short. 

He would have rathered, in life, to go unnoticed anyway. Being noticed got his family burned alive; being noticed landed him in the Alpha Pack's crosshairs. His being noticed had nearly gotten Stiles killed, over and over again; because he'd been unable to hide that Stiles mattered to him. 

It's not that Stiles is the only one that can notice him now. 

That would be the easy answer, so it can't possibly be case. 

No, Derek feels like he's caught in a magnetic field because Stiles...whenever Derek had managed to finally get his scent, and whatever Derek is forgetting about that scent--he knows that it'd smelled of safety, peace, and home. 

Stiles slams his way through the front door as if he's been talking himself into a rage the whole ride home, but when Derek appears before him, Stiles falters at what Derek now feels. 

"You don't get to think of running away from me, Derek, not unless you've figured out how to...how to move on." Stiles sounds like he had the night Gerard had tortured him; sounds like he's watching someone he loves permanently leave him. "What happened up there, Derek? Why did you...why did you feel like you'd died again?" 

"I don't remember how you smell." Derek chokes out. Stiles seems to be picking the thoughts from his brain along with the emotions in his heart, and so Derek tries to tell himself that he doesn't have to say any of it for Stiles to understand--hopes that it's enough to keep the words in his mouth, as jagged as they are. 

"I would have thought that'd be a relief, not a cause for anguish." Stiles sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He's getting a headache, Derek can tell. It happens, when he's been using his powers, Derek remembers, and if it weren't for the tremour in the other hand, Derek would make himself leave, if only to give Stiles a break. "I missed your voice. I was worried...that something had happened. Something that chased you even to the other side." 

Derek had had his throat torn out viciously enough that he'd nearly been beheaded. It wasn't exactly an unreasonable concern. Derek can't reply now, and Stiles nods as if he can sense that, a moue of sympathy softening his usually-sharp features. 

"It's good that you can talk. It means that you're stronger than I'd feared. Might not even be too long before you'll be able to interact with this world...if only a little." There's a smile twitching at Stiles's lips, and Derek refuses to let himself actually feel the love that he has for this man. 

Stiles looks around the foyer; a place that neither of them have really stood in for any length of time in the week and a half that Stiles has been here. Of course, because Stiles is who he is, his eyes immediately fall right where Derek wouldn't want them to. 

The photos are not ones that he'd wanted other people to know about. He'd put them there because it'd been something to welcome him home. Stiles and Erica in spirited, but grinning debate; Laura, scowling at the camera with her hair in curlers. The whole Hale clan, sitting for Talia's fortieth birthday party. He couldn't find pictures of Boyd or Isaac; didn't care to hang pictures of Scott or anyone else. And while he did have a picture of Erica alone, he hadn't been able to bring himself to take down the one of her with Stiles, given to him by Lydia when she'd come across it working on year book. 

It's Derek's bleeding heart; and this entrance is his attempt to get him to face himself, even if only as he walked through the memories. "You need therapy, Derek." Stiles manages, voice on the verge of tears. "And I mean that in an entirely loving and caring way." He gestures to the hall, "This isn't...exposure therapy, sourwolf. It's torturing yourself." 

"So what would you do?" 

"I am not a good example of letting go, I think we are both well-aware. Hell, I think part of the reason I got the powers I got is because I wanted so badly to hold on, even through death." 

"So what are you going to do?" 

"I'm going to put up a few pictures of my own, I think. I said you need therapy; which is not to imply that I don't need it just as badly." 

Derek snorted, couldn't help himself, and Stiles managed a smile. 

"I'm not going to...push you into talking with me. Or actively try to pluck your thoughts from your head. I'm pretty sure I'm only picking up the strong ones, anyway. But, Derek...you have to know, after--after all of this, that I'm here for you." 

"You're," Derek swallows, and it feels like razorblades, "you're the only one who has been, without question." 

Stiles's eyes soften, and Derek would lose his breath if he had any, because in that moment, somehow, it feels like Stiles's hand wraps around his. "C'mon, then. Let's find something for me to torture you with on Netflix, and you can work on trying to influence the world around you enough to throw popcorn at my head." 

Derek snorts again, but the echo of the boy he’d been—Laura’s younger brother; Peter’s favourite nephew; an older brother himself three times over—feels a twinge of actual awakening at the prospect of doing just that. 

If Laura were here, she would tease him about pigtail-pulling.


	4. Break Them Right

The first time it happens, Derek can't manage to summon a braincell with which to think; he simply wraps Stiles in his arms, desperate to hold him again--but also staring in desolation at Stiles's body on his bed. 

"It's okay, sourwolf. I'm not dead. Watch." The muffled reassurances just preface the body on the bed continuing to breathe evenly in apparent sleep. "I was reading...about astral projection. Wanted to give it a go." 

Derek loosens his hold, but Stiles only shifts far enough back to look at him properly, and Derek will not let the opportunity to touch Stiles slip through his fingers. 

With Stiles astral projecting, it's like someone has turned Derek's senses back on. Stiles smells like ginger, sweet but spicy, and just a little like the forest. Stiles's heartbeat is music to Derek's ears, and it's only in having it back that he realizes that he hasn't been able to hear it. 

He's a breath away from kissing Stiles when Stiles's phone goes off loudly, and he's suddenly not in Derek's arms anymore, but jerking awake on the bed, swearing a blue streak even as he rifles through the blankets and pillows to try to find the damn thing and shut it up. 

Stiles doesn't answer it, just silences it, turning a pained gaze on Derek once he manages. "I'm sorry." 

Derek shakes his head, the sentiments on his tongue tangling together like lovers long-separated. He had to make sure that in doing that, whatever it was, Stiles wasn’t putting himself somehow at risk; he had to beg Stiles to do it again—beg for Stiles’s permission to finally kiss him. He knows he’d need permission, and he has to hope, in order to be just a fraction of a good man, that Stiles will deny him, if only to save himself. 

The phone goes off again, and they both jump. Stiles growls long and low, but he answers it. 

When Stiles says nothing and nearly throws it across the room after a minute, Derek has to give him whatever unattainable comfort he can. 

“Scott,” the name of Stiles’s best friend drips with venom in a way Derek’s never heard before, even in the mess of things with Peter, “wants me to go home.” 

“Scott’s not the boss of you.” Derek scoffs, “He’s barely the boss of him.” 

Stiles laughs, lighting up with it until it’s all Derek can do to look at him. “You’re right, but he likes to forget that, and likes to try to make me forget it, too.” Stiles tucks his mouth, a signal that what’s about to come out of it is something Derek’s probably not going to like. “Is it an Alpha thing?” 

Derek raised his brows, “If memory serves, most of the orders I ever gave you, you straight-up ignored; the few you actually followed were the ones I made before I even became an Alpha.” 

Stiles twists his mouth in a moue of dissatisfaction at having his disobedience brought up again, but no counter argument comes. “I’m sorry,” Stiles croaks, and Derek is horrified at the wetness in his eyes, “I know that those days were some of your worst—some of our worst. But right now, I think I’d give just about anything to have them back. For you to be alive, even if it means I’d have to go through all of it again.” 

“You’d put yourself through it again, but you’d want to save me from it, wouldn’t you?” 

Stiles shrugs, “Lydia spilled the beans on me, sourwolf. I’ve loved you for years. If I’d had any idea of how to stop it while we were in the thick of things then, Derek, I would have done it no matter the cost. To save you and the others…I can’t think of anything more worth going through that pain again.” 

_I love you, too,_ Derek tells him in an act of stupidity that he can’t bear. He hopes it’s not one of the thoughts Stiles has become sensitive enough to pick out of his head, and only relaxes when Stiles sighs, very deliberately shutting his phone off before settling back on the pillows. “You tried new magic today, I almost forgot. How do you feel?” 

Stiles doesn’t have to answer; his lashes flutter, his exhaustion written plainly over his features. Derek remembers, now, using his presence to press Stiles back; more herding than Derek would care to admit. He does that now, urging Stiles back into fully laying down against the pillows, nestling into the lingering warmth left by his own body heat. 

Stiles looks at him with something that twists Derek's heart all over again; something he refuses to acknowledge the name of, and refuses to let himself really feel. "Go to sleep, Stiles. Just sleep." 

Derek needs to go through what research Lydia has provided; astral projection wasn't something Stiles ever bothered to consider before, so whatever is in there must have been good, and Derek needs to know what else is on Stiles's mind. Needs to make sure that Stiles isn't going to be risking himself in some way, either by doing this, or by doing something more. 

The research is on the kitchen table, stacked neatly in an echo of how the Sheriff used to try to stack his paperwork in order to dissuade Stiles from going through it. 

Trying to remember what it's like to turn a page, Derek reaches for the pile, and manages to push it, but can't quite get his hands to cooperate in actually flipping the file open. 

Derek has managed to push the top file off of the stack by the time Stiles's breathing changes, a high note of distress summoning Derek back to the bedroom without a second's hesitation. 

The signs of his nightmares are something Derek has no right to know so well; the pinch between his brows and the desperate part of his lips in pain like a gut-punch. Derek remembers standing over Stiles, watching this, years and years ago. Bearing witness to Stiles's nightmares of losing those he loves, because there was an echo in himself that he couldn't deny; one that saw flames more often than not when he closed his eyes. 

In life, Derek hadn't been able to ask what it was Stiles dreamed of. Stiles's muffled sleep-murmuring never came with his real nightmares, and doesn't now; and Derek can't just stand there and watch, even for how badly Stiles needs to sleep. The gasping, ragged quality of his breaths now tell Derek that even if he did leave Stiles to his nightmares, it wouldn't give the man any rest. 

"Stiles." Derek makes his voice clear, but not loud. "You're having a nightmare." 

Stiles is still asleep, a gust of breath slipping between his lips as if it'd been knocked out of him, and then the next inhale is steady. "Derek," Stiles sighs, and Derek knows by memory that the way Stiles has gone lax on the bed means that Stiles is now actually resting. 

Derek didn't touch Stiles as he should have; as he'd wanted to. But he can try now, at least a little. He remembers the gentle pressure of running fingers through hair, and hopes that his hand and his memory cooperate this time. Stiles lets out a pleased hum, so he thinks he must get it at least a little right. 

"I'm here, Stiles, and I'm not going anywhere. Not...Not without you." 

It's horrible of him, he's well-aware; but there was never much chance to begin with, that he would be able to make himself walk away from Stiles again. He'd barely been able to in the first place. 

If there comes a time when Stiles find happiness, then maybe he'll be able to move on. But he doubts he'll be able to convince himself to move on without Stiles truly being okay. 

He continues to pet through Stiles's hair, unable to make himself stop. The sensation is dulled, as if his hand is asleep, but at least he can kind of feel _something_. Stiles's eyelids flicker, his mouth falling open as he moves his head into the gesture of Derek's hand. 

"I missed you so much, Stiles." Derek admits, safe in the night as Stiles dreams, "I shouldn't have left." 

Derek can't sense things like temperature, or ambient pressure; but as he sweeps a careful thumb over the plain of Stiles's brow, something changes on his side, just as much as on Stiles's. A jolt of electricity seems to pass through him from where he's touching Stiles, and for a moment, touching Stiles feels how it is supposed to feel. 

Breath catching, Derek ducks down, caught between fear and desperate hope as he tries to inhale the scent of Stiles again. It’s tinged now with Stiles’s magic, the ginger of it tempered with something like burnt sugar, and Derek bites back viciously on a sound of pain as his lips brush Stiles’s forehead, and Stiles sighs happily in his sleep. 

The magic only lasts a moment, about as long as Stiles had managed to astral project, and Derek doesn’t want to question it, but knows that for Stiles’s sake, he really has to. 

Testing a theory of his own, Derek focuses on the empty side of the bed next to Stiles; wanting to move there, without removing his finger from the tangle of Stiles’s hair. Slipping into the grey and back out was something nearly comfortable, the anchor point of his hand in Stiles’s hair making it all the easier. 

He'd barely admitted to himself in life that Stiles had become his anchor when the anger had failed him; now, in death, it was the easiest thing to see. Stiles had been a fresh breath of air after choking for so long on smoke; and Derek had hated him for, when he realized. Now he could see how useless it had been to try to fight it; Stiles was always going to matter more to him than he'd ever be comfortable with, and Derek should have found it in himself to be at least kind to Stiles, instead of fighting himself to the point of lashing out at him. 

Derek has to wonder, sitting in the silence of Stiles's sleep, if it could be a part of Stiles's power, to anchor ghosts; or if he is just as truly hopeless as he'd feared being in life. 

Stiles hums softly, nuzzling into Derek's pillow and breathing deep, in a state of peace that Derek wishes he had seen years ago.


	5. Here's My Acheilles' Heel

Stiles is wrapped up in a blanket, a cup of tea steaming beside him as he stares into the flames merrily crackling in the fireplace. Derek marvels at the sight, the lost time he'd spent in the grey a niggling thought that's quickly extinguished as Stiles sips from his drink. 

There's nothing there for Stiles to be doing, but staring at the fire; no book, no phone or tablet, just the crackle of the flames and the silence of the room. "Stiles?" Derek tries to modulate his voice; wants to keep it from startling Stiles, when his aim is only to draw him out of his reverie. Brown eyes blink up at him where he stands, and Derek is asking the question before he can even think of the words, "What do you dream?" 

Stiles's brows raise slightly, and his gaze drops back to the fire, "Drowning, mostly. In one way or another." Stiles doesn't have to elaborate that the other way he dreams of drowning is drowning in his own blood. Stiles had bourn witness to that horror; and with the way Stiles had held him up in the pool years ago, it shouldn't surprise Derek that drowning is what haunts him most heavily. 

"That night..." Derek starts, and Stiles's eyes snap back to him, hardening, "I don't think I ever thanked you." 

"Is it a relief, Derek?" Stiles asks after a beat, the question high with a pain that Derek does not want to place. "You looked...peaceful, when I grabbed you. I've always...I've always wondered, if you weren't somehow...ready to go." 

"I was." Derek admits, and Stiles presses his eyes closed as if shutting out sight will shut out the sound, "I wasn't looking for it, but...I had been ready since the night my family burned because of my stupidity. When you pulled me out, a part of me dreaded surviving--having to keep going." There are tears running down Stiles's cheeks, and Derek doesn't have to really focus at all to wipe them away with careful fingers. 

"Is..." Stiles visibly rallies himself, and forces the words out, "is the reason you're not moving on, because you'll have to see your family again? Because you still--still blame yourself for their deaths?" 

Derek tilts his head, considering, "No. I do still blame myself, a little. Your logic was unassailable, but I still can't help but feel like I'm to blame, if only a little." Stiles snorts softly, shaking his head. Stiles finding out about Kate had been one of the most horrifying experiences of Derek's life; mainly because Stiles then broke into his apartment to talk for three and a half hours about how, even under the strictest of moral guidelines, Derek could not be blamed for falling victim to Kate Argent, and therefore could not be held responsible for her massacre of his family. "I don't blame myself so much that I don't want to see my family again, anyway." 

Stiles huffs, looking back up at him. Derek lowers down; not substantial enough to sit, but not really hovering, either, onto the coffee table in front of Stiles. "If you can't blame me for getting possessed, you can't blame you for being used." 

Derek's features twist in an over-dramatic rendition of his standard glare of disagreement. "You had no choice. I did." 

Stiles hums, "You were a sixteen-year-old male being specifically targeted and preyed upon by an older...I guess objectively attractive woman." 

Derek gives him a soft, amused look at the qualifier that she was "objectively" attractive. 

Shrugging, Stiles makes a helpless gesture, "You were far hotter than she was while I briefly knew her, and I only ever knew her as Allison's psycho-pants aunt, so I never saw any alluring qualities." 

"Ah, so I was attractive enough that it actively distracted you from appreciating other people?" 

Stiles flips him off, and Derek laughs openly. 

Derek consciously lays his hand against Stiles's legs where they're propped beside him on the coffee table, imagining the feel of the blanket covering the lean muscle of Stiles's calf and the hard bone of his shin. Stiles's breath catches, and he looks at Derek with a flash of open longing that he tries very hard to immediately hide. 

"You're getting stronger." Stiles notes, voice hoarse now, and Derek hums the affirmative. "Is that a werewolf thing, do you figure--" 

"It's because of you, I think. Because I'm bound to you." Stiles audibly looses his breath, and Derek meets his eye actively trying to be honest and brave about his honesty, "It's not the house I'm haunting." 

Stiles swallows, a click in his throat audible in the hush. "I'm sorry, Derek." 

Derek furrows his brows, tilting his head in silent question, and Stiles tears his eyes down to look at where Derek still lightly grips his lower leg.

"I have a hard time letting go, remember? Maybe it isn't you that has to find your peace. Maybe I'm just...keeping you hostage here." 

"You're not." Derek refutes, easy as breathing, and Stiles turns agonized eyes on him as if daring that to be true. "You're not keeping me hostage. My regret for...for how I treated you? For the loss of--of even a friendship with you?" Derek trails off, hoping that Stiles can pick up every thought in his head of what he's made himself miss out on, even as he wishes Stiles would throw those regrets back in his face rather than regret them, too. 

"Would you have loved me, too?" Stiles sounds broken, and the sound of it is enough to break Derek, too. 

"I already did. I just couldn't...couldn't let anyone else, even you, know. Couldn't stomach someone hurting you to get to me, even though that'd already happened." Gerard Argent had chosen wisely when it was Stiles he took to send a message to the pack. 

Stiles's breath catches, and he reaches for Derek with a spark of his magic dancing along his fingertips. Derek can feel his hand when he makes contact with his arm, and the sensation is as if gooseflesh has erupted all over, but Derek knows it truly hasn't. 

For a long time, Stiles and Derek stay that way; Stiles's hand on his arm, and Derek's other hand on Stiles's leg. It takes more effort than either of them ought to expend, but Derek can only bring himself to think about all the times when he should have welcomed Stiles touching him, instead of flinching away. 

Touch had been difficult for Derek; werewolves were tactile creatures, but somehow Kate had managed to overwrite his instinct to let himself be touched with a fear that he was abjectly ashamed to admit to. 

Stiles had done his research, of course he had. He knew that wolves wanted touch; and it hadn't really taken him very long to curb trying to touch Derek at all for allowing Derek to touch him. 

Derek still hasn't said the words, he knows all too well. They still tangle at the back of his throat, and he imagines that this is what a hairball feels like. But, even that night Stiles had held him up in that damn pool for hours--that night they'd discussed the kamina, Stiles had given Derek's thoughts words. _An abomination_ , Stiles had said, taking that thought from catching at Derek's doubt that Scott didn't still label werewolves just that, despite being one. And Stiles had said it as though he'd never for a moment thought of Derek and his kind as anything but the part of the world they were. Derek hopes and hates himself for hoping that Stiles knows the words without him saying them, just like he knew that night. That Derek can be spared from having to say them, and be saved from knowing what they feel like when they're spoken to the right person. 

There comes a time when they both can't maintain their touch, and when Stiles draws his hand away instead of letting it fall through Derek's arm, it's a kindness that Derek wishes Stiles wouldn't keep showing him. "I don't think I'll be able to astral project tonight." 

Derek shakes his head, "I don't want you to. Rest, please. If you go back looking drained, I think Lydia and Scott might actually team up to bring me back in order to kill me again." 

Stiles regards him, the scrutiny not unlike his father's in that moment. Far too honed on chaos and depravity for Derek to be able to get away with anything. "I liked you better as Alpha than Scott." Derek blinks at him, gobsmacked, and Stiles shrugs a shoulder, "I realize it's weird werewolf mojo, and I respect that...to a point? But you went through a hell of a lot more than Scott did, and I think that if you'd let it, it would have made you a much stronger Alpha than he'll ever manage to become." 

It means more than Derek wants it to. Stiles is the closest Derek has seen to a real Alpha since Laura had left him in New York. Stiles, with his cleverness and his ability to separate what is right from what is strictly good. Scott wanted what was right and what was good to be the same thing: it was a big part of why he'd fought so hard against being a wolf, that misunderstanding that just because he was changed, it did not make him wrong. 

Derek himself isn't sure where he goes when he gets tired, but after the expenditure of will it had taken to be able to touch Stiles for as long as he did, he can feel that he'll have to rest just as much as Stiles does. 

Stiles drains his tea, trying to hide his wistful expression, but Derek can feel it at this point; the void where they lost enough time together to make what little they can get now all the more painful. There's an empty space in the world where the two of them together should have been happy. 

In the waning light of the autumn evening, Derek sits and watches while Stiles makes a stirfry, Stiles scoffing at him for the selection of frozen vegetables he kept. "You're worse than I am." Stiles sighs, and Derek snickers, remembering well the Stilinski battle for freezer space. 

Derek had liked cooking; had found a kind of relief in it. He’d liked it best when he’d been doing it for others; using it almost as a crutch to force himself, by caring for someone else, to care for himself even a little. Laura had teased him that he ought to become a chef, but Derek had found too much pleasure in cooking to think it would be a good idea to try to make a career of it. Stiles moves through this space that had been Derek's as easily as if he'd been there the whole time; as if that night that Derek awoke beside him hadn't been the first time he'd even laid eyes on the place. 

The look of concern Stiles fixes him with is enough to make Derek question if he's been babbling. "You're flickering, Derek. It looks like you need rest just as much as I do. So go take it." 

Derek couldn't stop his smile at the authoritative lilt of Stiles's tone, the unimpressed tilt of his brows as he crosses his arms over his chest and glares at Derek without heat. 

The desire to kiss the curve of frown from Stiles's lips is strong enough to be a taste at the back of Derek's throat, and the ache of the inability—the ache of the loss—has Derek feeling as if he's being slowly crushed. "I'm here, sourwolf. I won't be going _anywhere_." 

The grey rises around Derek like a tide, and he's trapped in place as it consumes him. 

There's nothing on this side of the veil; a release of the urge to try to influence the world around him because there is no world. No concept of time or space; just...a nothingness, which goes beyond even the absence felt with dreamless sleep. 

Derek can still feel the tether of Stiles to that side of the veil, and he tries very hard not to let a twist of fear control him—fear that if he lets himself, he'll lose track of all time, and Stiles won't be on the other side of the veil for him to return to.

It's a fear that Derek's always had. There were many drawbacks to being able to hear the heartbeats of those he loved: but none quite so terrible as the silence when they stopped. Losing his family had terrified him to his core. The silence where their heartbeats had been had been deafening. 

Stiles's heartbeat had haunted him after Derek had left. Not being able to hear it now is nearly worse than the fear of eventually losing it. The only comfort is that Derek's stopped before Stiles's could.


	6. In the Fight to Protect It

When Derek snaps back into the world, it's to find Stiles and Lydia in the middle of what looks like an isolated blizzard of paper. "Hello, Derek." Lydia chirps, and Stiles looks up, a blush flooding his cheeks as an incredibly happy smile spread over his mouth. 

Stiles pointed silently to a pendulum that Lydia used to sense ghosts, the gentle swaying hunk of amethyst explaining how Lydia knew he was even there. The crumple of confusion on Derek's brow clears, a smile of his own slowly spreading. "How long was I gone?" Derek nearly has a coronary--even as a ghost--as a static-filled radio signal relays his words to the room at large; Lydia's triumphant grin nearly making him groan. 

"Two days." Stiles tells him gently, "You look better." 

"So do you," Derek murmurs. Lydia snorts, looking between Stiles and where he's looking with raised brows and pursed lips. 

"You two are just adorable." 

Stiles idly flips her the bird, and Derek can't help but laugh as she smacks him lightly. 

Derek turned himself instead of reaching for the nearest paper, the copy of the illumination on the text grainy but clear enough to make out the stylized image of a devil leading a procession of the dead down a street. 

"Necromancy research?" Derek asked. 

"Mm-hm." Stiles allows just a bit of derision drip into his affirmative hum, and Derek bites back a laugh. Stiles's hatred of trying to slog through the mythology of his own powers had surprised Derek. Stiles had managed to navigate through all the frankly horrifying bullshit attached to were mythology; but Derek is intimately familiar with the nausea that comes attached to reading the incorrect and often-insulting lore commonly spread about what _you_ are. Stiles straightens from squinting at his tablet at what looks like a file of a copy of some sort of ancient text, and he actually smiles again at Derek, beckoning him closer. "Watch this." 

In a vase between them, there is a collection of roses, alive and dead, and Stiles reaches to one of the dead. Stiles deliberately pricks his finger on a thorn, and the blood that wells up blooms the rose back to life at the same time. 

"Blood, bone, and bird spit, as the adage goes." Lydia says with a satisfaction that draws Derek's brows towards his hairline. 

"Regular magic takes energy: necromancy takes...well..." Stiles shrugs. 

"What the hell is bird-spit?" 

"It's a bodily fluid. Just think about it for a second..." Lydia shoots the air over his left shoulder a meaningful look, and Derek's face crumples in disgust. 

"I thought blood-magic and...sex-magic were different things." 

"Everything is connected!" Lydia and Stiles chorus with a cartoonish tone, the both of them looking murderously frustrated about it. 

Derek coughs down a laugh, and Stiles purses his lips, glaring at him. 

"Just you wait. We're going to figure out-- _oh_." Lydia throws her hands out in a 'pause' gesture, and Stiles's eyes widen eagerly, waiting with literal bated breath. 

"Wait...you're not trying to bring me back, are you? Stiles, that...that's too much. The cost of it..." 

"We're figuring that out." Lydia waves her fingers like he'll somehow forget that they're talking about bringing him back from the dead when the cost would be blood. "I think if we all contributed a little blood...?" The moue of speculation is more troubling an expression on Lydia than he'd seen on her since Peter had been in her head. 

Stiles determinedly won't look at Derek, and somehow Derek knows that Stiles is going to find an answer come hell or high water--unless he puts a stop to it. 

"I don't want to come back." Derek blurts the lie, and hopes that he's going to get a chance to make it sound believable. Lydia shoots his general direction a look, but Stiles takes a slow, slightly shaking breath. 

"You have a choice, of course," Lydia comments leadingly, her glare telling him very plainly that while she's saying the words, she only means them to an extent, "but why don't you try to explain to me why you don't want to come back to life and have a chance at being with _your mate_." 

Stiles flinches, and Derek realizes that he didn't actually tell him; that Lydia knew without Stiles's input. 

"Because Derek's been through Hell. And if he doesn't want to keep going, I'm not going to drop him in the middle of it." Stiles tells her flatly. 

The tone of his voice is enough to make Lydia blink in shock, and Stiles closes out of the scan on his tablet, hands fluttering over the printouts as if he's going to pack up on research now; as if researching for a way to bring Derek back was the only thing making the single most curious soul Derek had ever known look into his own powers. Stiles pulls himself to his feet, and as he does, the roses that he'd brought back to life wither in their vase; his sadness turning the petals black. 

Lydia's glare could melt diamond, but Derek's too focused on Stiles to take much notice. "I want..." Derek's voice catches, and Stiles turns back to him, nodding once. 

"I understand. Derek, it's not like...not like I can really blame you." 

A look of alarm that screams "abort mission" at Derek as loud as an expression possibly can takes over Lydia's features, and just like that she's out of their snowdrift of papers, too, and hightailing it out of there. 

"No, you really can." Derek disagrees softly once she's gone, and Stiles turns the radio off so that the echo of his words no longer plays. "It's my fault that we...missed our chance in the first place. And now...now I won't see you pay a price like that, just for--You're...kind of human, Stiles. This, if I left you--if I let it--would heal over for you. You could move on and be happy, no need to raise the dead and risk your life in doing it!"

"If you _left_ me?" Stiles recites slowly, and Derek's heart feels like it's been torn out of his chest. "Derek, I'm willing to pay--" 

"I'm not. You might be okay with bleeding for me, but I have never been okay with it, and you know that. I know these exchanges: it's balance. A life for a life. No amount of trying to prevaricate would undo that, and we both know it. Lydia could figure out exactly how much blood it would take, but it still wouldn't quite be enough. And I know you, Stiles," Derek drops his voice, and suddenly there is no space between where he and Stiles stand, as if the feet of floor between them have folded in on themselves and vanished, "I know that if you were getting _close_ , you'd do whatever it took to make it the distance. So I don't want you to try to find a way to bring me back." 

Stiles looks at him with the years of all the small acts of neglect Derek ever committed against him. All the times when Derek could have chosen a better way; could have changed where they stand now. Stiles looks at him with love that has been lost, over and over, in small ways and in large ones, for as long as they've known each other. "You'd leave...and because I'm--because I'm _human_ , you think I'm going to some day get over it?" 

"I don't want to...but if--if the only answer is to leave, or for you to try to bring me back.... Stiles, you can't bring me back." 

A tear rolls down Stiles's cheek, and Derek hates himself somehow more than he already did. Not for the tear; but for the concession that Derek would stay if Stiles stops looking for a way to bring him back. Because Derek, by rights, should have to go. Derek should let Stiles live his life, find some joy, and heal from all these wounds that carrying Derek with him this way will keep re-opening. And by the tremor in Stiles's hands, Stiles can pick up on what he's thinking and feeling more than well enough to discern that.

"If it were the other way around..." Derek begins gently, and Stiles gives a sniffle, but nods, lips pursing. 

"I wouldn't let you risk your life to bring me back, either." 

It's not a safety, Derek knows; Stiles does what he wants, and Derek can't think of a time he's ever actually "let" Stiles really do any of what he's done. But it's enough for now, with Stiles's eyelashes wet, and his skin paler than it should be. Derek wishes he could wrap Stiles up in his arms, in his bed, and just...take care of him. There's no one else left in the world Derek would ever want to take care of; no one else he feels like he could. But the way he and Stiles fit together, he knows that, of all the people in Stiles's life, he's the only one that Stiles would let try. 

He hopes that will change; and perhaps there's a part of him, he reflects, that knows that it won't—that he's staying simply because there really isn't a way for Stiles to find his way back to a happily ever after with someone else. Derek has carried guilt enough to crush him since he was sixteen; this isn't supposed to be any different, the guilt of losing their chance, but it is. 

Stiles haltingly goes over to the grocery bags half-emptied for their perishable items, and Derek's stomach twists at the realization that Stiles hasn't left the house in days; willing to lay money that the haul was brought here by Lydia, a concession to taking care of him that Stiles wouldn't even have registered. Derek turns to the research, completely unwilling to clean it up, but also knowing very well that if he leaves it in the state it's in, then Stiles might be tempted to keep looking anyway, instead of approaching with the fresh eyes of someone wanting to know more about their own abilities. 

The reticence to find out more about Stiles's powers had always been a vexation for Derek, but there was very little Derek could do about it. Gathering up the printouts, marked with Stiles's spidery handwriting and Lydia's militantly straight highlighter work, Derek can see a little more, why Stiles didn't want to know then, and wouldn't want to know now. 

Necromancy was rare. They'd known that from the start. What Derek hadn't taken into account was how openly despised it was in the magical community. Stiles had scribbled "ABOMINATION" over the heading describing the demon mythologized to be responsible for it, and Derek straightens, turning to Stiles. "You're not." 

Stiles looks over at him, perplexed, then down to the paper in his hand, a look of coldness passing like a cloud over his features, "Aren't I? Necromancers are rare because they were hunted to extinction, Derek. We're so hated, even by other magic users, that the only line of necromancer magic commonly left is being a medium...and there are barely any of those left, either." 

The loss of history; the loss of knowledge is something that drives Stiles mad, Derek realizes; it's not simply the persecution, but how the persecution has changed the world they live in. Not only does Stiles have to slog through the awful parts tacked onto lore that's rightfully his; he has to do it alone, unsure, to an extent, of what's real and what's fabrication.

Stiles flinches as Derek draws close, and Derek focuses as hard as he can on remembering how it felt to have hands; to draw his fingertips over Stiles's cheek. Stiles presses his eyes closed, and Derek can feel his powers wrap around him, like walking into a warm rainstorm. 

"Don't overtax--" Derek starts, but Stiles places a finger just over his lips, shaking his head once. 

"Do you know that I've been in love with you since I was seventeen?" Stiles asks, the words soft as a breath, but his voice cracks over them like the treacherous rocks they are. 

"I knew...when I first saw you, looking for Scott's inhaler, I knew then. But I couldn't--" 

"You lost everyone you loved, Derek. I don't blame you for not wanting to add me to the list of people you love." Stiles silences him again, and Derek aches for the kindness. "I didn't want you to be one of the people I loved, either." There's a nakedness in Stiles's gaze when he raises his eyes at last, and Derek feels like he's been punched in the solar plexus. "My dad lost my mom...and he was broken—still is, a little. I knew that if I let myself love you...and I lost you, I'd be even worse." 

Derek's heart drops, the revelation of it making him lose his breath. The knowledge of the Sheriff's grief had been there the whole time; but it hadn't clicked until now, the kind of heart Derek was breaking. Stiles's heart had stayed true for the last seven years; and always will. 

Derek reaches to cup his hands around Stiles's jaw, and it's like his hands are both asleep, but he can at least touch Stiles and have him feel something. 

The slow recession of Stiles's magic gives Derek enough warning that he doesn't fall through Stiles when it's gone, and Stiles opens his eyes, "I want to try astral projecting again tonight." 

Derek wants it more than he should ever allow himself to, but he doesn't have the gumption to say no. "You should keep reading." Derek nods towards the paper drift still in half-disarray. The pages he'd picked up and started stacking had fallen through his hand when he'd focused on touching Stiles instead of holding them, but thankfully the small pile hadn't spread themselves out too far. 

"There was a time, a long time ago, when your ancestors feared mine so much they took to burning their dead, so that there was no body for us to reanimate." Stiles quirks a brow, "They didn't realize we really don't need a body to bring somebody back, just the spirit...but they changed their culture for decades out of the fear of it." 

Derek has never felt a more painful urge to laugh as he looks Stiles dead in the eye with all the seriousness he can muster to tell him, "Just so you know, I'm not afraid of you." Stiles chokes, a look of the most reluctant amusement Derek has ever seen screwing up his features. 

"Asshole." 

"Oh, please. You love me." 

"I know. I know I do. I just wish I had better taste." 

Derek guffaws, and Stiles outright giggles. 

Stiles clears up the sprawl of paper, but moves it to the table instead of throwing it completely away, so Derek takes it as a step in the right direction. 

Glancing at the clock, Derek idly peruses the options available to a ghost to distract Stiles out of the mire they'd gotten into at two o'clock in the afternoon. "What was that stupid movie you kept bugging me to watch before I left?" 

Stiles freezes, his ears going red at the tips, " _Lesbian Vampire Killers_ …" Stiles replies, not at all as innocently as he was clearly hoping to sound. 

"And why were you trying to get me to watch that?" 

"One, because you need more joy and laughter and stupidity in your life—do not say the easy thing to say there, I may love you but I refuse to continue to if you go for such low-hanging fruit." 

Derek grins what Laura had once accused him of being his innocence-personified grin, and Stiles's face ranges from the sternness he was trying to wear, to an expression best described as "melting", then into suspicion. 

"Two, because, much like me, it is terribly great." 

Derek rolls his eyes, "Sure, and it has nothing to do with the gay werewolf reveal at the end." 

Stiles's mouth drops open, his eyes going wide before he flails into pointing accusingly at Derek, "YOU! You've watched it?!" 

Derek shrugs, grinning, "Maybe. But I think I'd definitely like to watch it with you." 

Stiles's jaw snaps shut with a click loud enough that _Derek's_ teeth hurt, and his eyes narrow. "Are we going to _date_?"


	7. An Ocean of Tears

Stiles moves through the veil, and Derek is there to meet him. 

By silent agreement, even for how much they both may want it, they won't kiss; their touches changed in their affection, but still on familiar enough ground, even if they can’t seem to stop touching each other. 

It's a line that can't be crossed, Derek contends: to allow themselves a real taste of what they've lost would be too much heartache, even for them. 

Instead, Derek wraps his arms around Stiles, breathing him in, and Stiles's fingers clutch greedily at his back, his own breathing almost winded in relief. Stiles nuzzles into his shoulder, holding tight, and Derek is awash in the scent of Stiles’s emotional upheaval. The lingering trace of the scent of Stiles’s magic on his skin is heady: blood and tears and fresh-turned earth in cool counterbalance to the spice of the ginger. 

They could hold each other like this for as long as the magic lasts; silent and simply wrapped in each other, no fatigue that wouldn’t come from Stiles using too much of his magic could bring them to need to sit or shift. Derek hopes, painfully, that Stiles feels as comfortable just holding him in silence as Derek does. 

Stiles’s hand shifts from his back reluctantly, laying his palm on Derek’s chest instead, reverent and caring, as though Stiles knows how badly his heart is aching to beat; just not for the price that would have to be paid. 

"The last time you did this, I was able to touch you for a little while afterwards, without really having to struggle for it." Derek admits. 

Stiles hums, "I thought I could feel your hand in my hair that night." There's a smile curving at Stiles's lips, and Derek huffs a laugh, shaking his head as he brushes the pad of his thumb over the arc of Stiles's lower lip. 

The backs of Stiles's fingers rub, light as a breath, back and forth over the cut of Derek's jaw, and the realization hits Derek that this should feel weird and weighted between them, but it doesn't at all. 

Derek remembers the second before Stiles's phone had gone off, and the nearly-irresistible urge he'd had to kiss Stiles senseless then. He won't; he's very good at repressing the things he shouldn't be able to resist, and Stiles deserves more than what Derek can give him now. But the look in Stiles's eyes tells him that Stiles feels the same way; and repression isn't in Stiles's repertoire, only denial, so Derek will have to bear watching Stiles refuse himself something they both want terribly.

"You were scared of holding me hostage...now I'm beginning to worry I'm doing the same to you." Derek murmurs at last, trying to break the spell of desire. 

Stiles bites his lip, looking slightly shifty, and Derek narrows his eyes, waiting. "You're not holding me hostage. But I am avoiding having to deal with anyone else."

Derek's brows furrow, and Stiles lets slip a sigh, "Lydia understands...but I don't have faith in anyone else not to harangue me. I like it here, with you. It's peaceful. And I...I don't feel like I have to worry about anyone else." 

Stiles is a caretaker; he is naturally what Derek was trying to make himself become after he'd lost his family. It hadn't occurred to Derek that there really hasn't been a time in their history where, in one way or another, Stiles isn't taking care of someone else over himself. Even now, an argument could be made that Stiles is taking care of Derek--but Derek's close enough to not needing anything that he realizes that it must be a relief to Stiles like nothing else. There is no demand, no expectation. There is only what Stiles and Derek choose to give each other. 

Derek had bought this little house, secluded in the woods, to cut himself off from the world. That now Stiles can find a sanctuary here is actually a blessing Derek didn't expect. 

Derek traces the hollow of Stiles's cheek with his thumb, the smooth skin under his touch belying how much Stiles has been through. Derek knows Stiles has a few scars, but not nearly so many as he by rights should have. Derek's always been thankful for that much. If Stiles carried the marks that ought to be there, Derek's not sure that he could face him. 

Their hands find each other, fingers sliding together. They'd helped each other up plenty of times; hands had brushed, and Derek knew that sometimes he'd let himself linger too long, if only because the ghost of Stiles's heartbeat would tingle its resonation against his hands any time he did. But taking Stiles's hand in his now, it's more grounding than such a simple gesture has any right to be. 

Stiles is the one beginning to flicker now, the exertion finally running his power dry. Derek tips his head up with a careful hand on his cheek, and rests his forehead to Stiles's, the breath slipping from Stiles near enough to a kiss to be a new kind of torture. 

~

There's no good way, even when he's on the side of the veil where he could keep track of such things, for Derek to be able to measure time. 

All he knows is that Stiles is invariably at the house when he steps back into the world; using the tether between them to guide him, rather than choosing where he'll appear. 

He knows it's been long enough that the season has changed. Stiles, more often than not, has a chill to his skin that Derek wishes he could chase away; and the appearance of Stiles's coat and boots fills in the blanks further. Stiles has taken to using his magic more and more freely; taking Derek's hands whenever Derek drifts back, or giving Derek enough of a chest for him to lean on while they watch a movie. 

They are dating, is the thing. Actively, actually dating. It's chaste and easy in a way that Derek's never had before, and the way Stiles looks at him is breaking down the anger Derek has for himself in missing out on this sooner--because Stiles never looks angry. A little sad; but, more often than not, just thankful. 

There is time, now, that Derek takes to rest. To actually let himself do more than wallow in his anger and grief. Stiles gives him the room to, and Derek actually uses it to really let himself think. 

He's beginning to wonder if it would be okay, to have, dead, what he'd denied himself in life. To finally kiss Stiles senseless and finish burying the notion that Stiles is ever going to find a point where he wants what Derek is trying to force him to accept. It's not the happily ever after Derek wants for him, to be in a relationship with a ghost. But he knows that Stiles wouldn't think twice about it once Derek finally relented. 

Derek's not sure how much time passes before the tug. 

There's nothing to call it besides a tug; something he could almost describe as an undertow in this sea of grey. It doesn't even take a thought to bend to its will, slipping through the veil as easily as he would slip through an open door. 

Stiles is standing right there when he surfaces, the look in his dark eyes enough to close off all thought. 

Stiles reaches for his face, cupping him between his palms in an echo of that day Derek had nearly succumb to Kate's wolfsbane bullets. 

Derek can feel him; the can hear and feel the pulse jumping in the soft of Stiles's wrists, can smell the determination like steel in his scent.

There's a hint of a smile pulling at Stiles's mouth, his eyes on Derek's lips for long enough that Derek knows Stiles is going to try to kiss him. "My Disney princess, Derek Hale." Stiles murmurs, voice throaty with the crackle of his powers. 

The brush of lips is mothwing-light, the rush of breath that follows—an exhalation of relief and joy—more substantial than the contact itself. Stiles tastes like roses and tears...and then Derek realizes why Stiles would taste so much like death. 

Derek takes his first breath and feels Stiles's hands on his jaw more than he can the ground beneath his feet, but he knows that what Stiles is doing is huge...huge and dangerous. 

Necromancy comes at a cost—all magic does, but necromancy most of all. And here Stiles is, beckoning the dead back to life in his arms. Derek slides a hand in the back of Stiles's hair, the other arm wrapping tight around the small of Stiles's back. Their next kiss is more what Derek would expect of Stiles; desperate and a little bit filthy. Derek's stomach twists with how totally he loves Stiles. This is a gift he's being given, despite how undeserving he is to his core. For once, Derek finds himself unafraid of the consequences of a gift like this: because Stiles knows him and understands, and wouldn't be giving it to him anyway if there was still anything to fear. 

"What are you doing?" 

"Giving you the kiss of life." Stiles teases, and Derek groans at how bad that joke is. 

There's no corpse in the immediate vicinity. No life Derek can see that was taken for him to be standing here with his own heart beating again in his chest. 

But there's the faintest trace of the scent of burning ozone in the air, and only in Derek's periphery, he can almost make out the shadow of a pair of wings that look like they connect to Stiles's back. 

"What...?"

"I figured it out," Stiles shrugs, "blood, bone, and bird-spit don't have to be the only things necromancy uses."

Derek flinches a shake of his head, not grasping it, and Stiles just smiles. 

"I'm afraid I have put the two of us in a slightly tight situation, but I figured it'd be one you wouldn't necessarily mind." Stiles places his hands on Derek's chest, drawing himself up slightly--and now Derek can hear the rustle of those wings, though he still can't quite see them. "Did you know that there is such a thing as a phoenix?" 

Derek blinks, his brow screwing up in confusion, and Stiles visibly bites back a laugh. 

"See, I thought they were just myth, too...until I put it together that a bird that embodied the dichotomy between life and death mirrors necromancy magic a little too closely." 

"Are you telling me you now turn into a bird?" 

Stiles's face becomes a moue of intense speculation before he shakes it off and shrugs expansively. "Got the wings at least. The rest I'll have to figure out." 

"But what..." Derek stops himself, "Tears. Phoenix tears have healing powers." 

"Necromancy likes blood, sure, it likes tears, too." Stiles agrees, "All the more powerful when they're the tears of joy at having found a way to bring back the wolf I love." 

Derek blinks, then seizes Stiles into his arms tightly, "But you said you got us into something?" 

Derek's voice is almost entirely muffled in Stiles's neck, and Stiles's answer is just a touch strangled with how tightly Derek is holding him, "I'm not entirely sure I can actually die anymore. And I know werewolves mate for life--usually meaning that the life-span of a mated pair will match. I think there's a way that I can still re-unite the Ha--"

Derek silences him with a kiss. He's back from the dead, and has his mate; he's let go of the grief, and somehow, he doesn't think his family would mind this. 

They get startled apart by someone trying very hard to pound the door down. 

"Scott." Derek growls, but Stiles gives him a tiny smile, shaking his head. 

"Come in, Lydia!" Stiles calls, and it is actually just Lydia who was nearly breaking the door off its hinges, looking for all the world like she's about to murder several someones. "Sense a death?" 

It clicks, then, fully: If Stiles has found a way to transcend into a phoenix, he could have died over and over and over to bring Derek back, and would just come back himself. 

Lydia looks from Derek to Stiles, "What the actual fuck did you do?!" 

Derek snorts into laughter, can't help it at this point, and Stiles starts giggling, too, which just makes Lydia more irate. Stiles moves to urge her to the couch and comfort, ready to offer tea and explanations until the sun comes up if he has to, but Derek takes his hand, pulling his attention back. 

"I love you." Derek says, clear and proud and unafraid as he can be after half a lifetime of fear. 

Stiles grins, "Sourwolf, it's about damn time."


End file.
